It's D-Day for speed cameras on busy routes

For months motorists have been slowing down to pass the two fixed cameras on the A33 between Kingsway and Evans Street - but they have not been in operation.

Now the Safety Camera Partnership for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (HSCP) has confirmed they will be up and running from February 28.

John Evans, of the Association of British Motorists, criticised the new cameras and said the HSCP was putting them in the wrong place. He said: "These two cameras have been sitting there since last year. They cost thousands to install them but they haven't been working.

"All the cameras are in the wrong places. They are simply being used as an alternative to proper safety measures such as pedestrian crossings."

Julian Hewitt, a spokesman for the HSCP, said the new site has a history of accidents in which one person had died and several were seriously injured.

There were 24 between 2001 and 2003 of which four resulted in serious injuries and there was one fatal accident.

He said: "This site was initially identified by Southampton City Council as a high casualty cluster and the partnership has spent some time ensuring that the site meets the demanding DfT (Department for Transport) criteria before a camera has been installed.

"This site is focused on a fairly short section of road that has a high casualty rate and evidence of excessive speed. The route has streetlights denoting it as a 30mph road. In addition the road-signs highlight the speed limit and the fact that speed cameras are operational on the road."

In Southampton the fatal/serious injury rate on mobile camera routes fell from an average of four per year to two in 2003-04, and over the same period at fixed camera sites the fatal/serious collision rate fell from an annual average of nine to six per cent. There are six other fixed speed cameras in Southampton. Two are on the A3024 Mountbatten Way, two are on the A35 Redbridge Road and two are on the A3024 Maybray King Way in Bitterne.